Graphene Battery Startup Nanotech Energy Raises $64 Million

Los Angeles-based Nanotech Strength declared Tuesday it raised $64 million in Collection D funding to assist the organization broaden its graphene battery operation. The firm has so significantly elevated $94.9 million in whole at a $550 million valuation, subsequent a practically $30 Collection C round earlier this 12 months.

---

Headquartered along Wilshire Avenue, Nanotech Electricity creates graphene-dependent batteries, which assure enhanced energy-efficiency, cost-success and charging time for electric cars and other purchaser electronics. The company’s items are based on the perform of two UCLA researchers: Richard Kaner, a chemistry professor who has been looking into graphene technologies since the early 2000s, and Maher El-Kady, a postdoctoral scholar.

Nanotech Energy is just one of quite a few corporations performing on graphene-based systems. Chicago-based NanoGraf, for instance, is doing work on a method to permit minimal-charge producing of graphene-based mostly batteries. In the world of shopper electronics, True Graphene sells a graphene-centered ability bank that it promises can produce a full cellphone cost in beneath 20 minutes. A Nanotech Energy spokesperson declined to remark on profits figures.

From still left: Nanotech Electricity co-founder CEO Jack Kavanaugh and UCLA researcher Richard Kaner.

Nanotech Energy’s Sequence D funding will go towards creating a European headquarters in Amsterdam and to build a graphene battery manufacturing plant in Reno, Nevada, which is anticipated to be concluded by late 2022. The firm also programs to make improvements to its plant in Chico, California.

“We’ve put in extra than seven yrs diligently creating new components to strengthen battery storage potential and protection and are now transferring into a new stage of creation at sector-amount scale,” reported CEO and co-founder Jack Kavanaugh in a press launch announcing the elevate.

The Sequence D round was led by Fubon Money Holding Co., a Taiwan-based mostly economical expert services company. The Nanotech Vitality spokesperson did not disclose other contributors in the spherical.

“We consider Nanotech Energy’s proprietary, non-flammable graphene batteries have a clear route to popular adoption and worldwide scalability,” Fubon Chairman Richard Tsai reported in the push launch.